I like old TV shows more than new ones. In general, I’m not a big TV watcher. But when I got sick last month and wanted to get my mind off the pain I was experiencing, I figured a medical drama could be just what the doctor ordered. So I gave an old show I had never watched before a chance. It’s called Doogie Howser, M.D.

This TV show is about a child prodigy who becomes a medical doctor at age 14 and begins saving lives at a hospital. We get introduced to him on his 16th birthday.

I knew of that TV show when I was growing up, but I never got to see a single episode of it. I’ve now seen four episodes, and I’d like to share my thoughts on what I saw.

Episode 1 – A Promising Start

The pilot started out promisingly. The opening scene managed to blend the two elements of Doogie Howser’s character seamlessly. He’s taking his driving test, obeying the rules of the road to the letter, when suddenly he sees a car crash and hurries over to assist using his medical training. He has to break certain rules and protocols, but as a result he’s able to save a man’s leg.

I liked seeing the two sides of Doogie’s character. He’s fastidious under normal circumstances, but he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty and bravely jump in when no one else knows what to do.

However, these were far from the only aspects of his character that the show wanted to explore. I thought that it was skipping the usual high-school tropes by having the 16-year-old never set foot in his local school for the usual classes or other teenage drama. I was wrong.

It turns out that Doogie’s next-door neighbor is rather precocious, giving voice to Doogie’s hormonal urges that he otherwise tries to keep under control. All that young man seems to want to talk about is sex. Okay, fine, I thought. Adventures in Babysitting and other ‘80s comedies have an annoying, sex-obsessed friend who needs to learn his lesson. Maybe that’s where this is going.

The first episode was mostly great. It pointedly showed that Doogie hadn’t had a charmed life up to this point. He had almost died of cancer at a very young age, which inspired him to become a medical doctor. That reminded me of Ludwig von Beethoven losing his hearing at an early age, which inspired him to become a great composer. I knew I liked his character after that.

And Doogie faces his first tragedy when a little boy is brought to him with a serious health issue. Doogie does everything he can for the boy, even promising he’ll get all better. But the boy dies before Doogie can do anything for him. This death is underscored by the fact that it happened while Doogie was at a dance with a girl he likes. He kissed her for the first time right before hearing the sad news. This provides a nice bookend for the episode. His two worlds (adolescence and medicine) collide in a happy way at the start and a tragic way at the end.

I didn’t like the way that an older woman treated Doogie at the hospital as a birthday surprise. But I chalked that up to first-episode jitters. I hoped the TV show would build on its good qualities and improve its lesser qualities in later episodes.

Episode 2 – Sudden Descent

The second episode dialed up everything I didn’t like about the first episode to 11. Suddenly, Doogie was going from innocently sharing his first teenage kiss to being asked to father a nearly 40-year-old woman’s baby. Okay, where is this going? I thought.

There’s a lady who gets transferred to Doogie’s hospital for a short time. She has a reputation for spurning any man’s overtures, but when she sees Doogie’s professionalism and skill on the job, she’s immediately smitten. She takes him to dinner and asks him to be the father of her child since she’s running out of time to become a mother. But she’s more than twice his age.

This puts Doogie in a moral quandary. Should he say yes and do something he is absolutely not ready for, or should he say no and put her in an uncomfortable situation? Thankfully, he makes the right choice and tells her to go open herself up to a loving relationship instead of turning everyone down. Meanwhile, he’ll focus on his budding relationship with his teenage girlfriend.

I know that there was a misunderstanding where she wanted him to be a sperm donor, while he thought she wanted relationship-free sex. But that distinction didn’t change my horror at what was happening.

That was a weird episode, though I guess it’s good to test the main character’s resolve in the face of a tempting offer. I was sure the show could finally get to the good stuff now.

Episode 3 – Nice Recovery

Episode 3 was much better. It’s all about Doogie’s relationship with his girlfriend. They go to the movies to watch Batman (which reminded me that this TV show debuted in 1989), and they sit in Doogie’s car afterward to enjoy each other’s company. However, she begins to feel extreme pain in her abdomen, something I could completely relate to at the time.

Doogie’s medical training kicks in, and he realizes that her appendix has ruptured. He rushes her to his hospital to receive the care she needs. It’s a very busy night, so every doctor is occupied with other emergencies, forcing Doogie to step in and perform surgery on his girlfriend. He also has to break other protocols to operate on her without her parents’ consent since they were incommunicado at the time. But if he had waited, she could have died.

When she wakes up after a successful surgery, she’s mortified that Doogie was the one to operate on her and see her in such a vulnerable state. Doogie apologizes profusely, and they’re able to patch up their relationship by the end of the episode. But this clearly left a scar and forced Doogie to rethink his headstrong attitude and consider how his actions affect others’ feelings and his hospital’s exposure to liabilities.

All in all, that was a pretty solid episode. I thought the show was finally hitting its stride. The sex humor felt a bit muted in favor of a more mature take on the subject.

Episode 4 – Crash and Burn

I wasn’t able to finish watching the fourth episode for three reasons.

First, its premise is a total cliché. Doogie’s parents are going out of town to celebrate their anniversary, so Doogie is going to be home alone. And guess what that means. That’s right, a teenage party that quickly spirals out of control. Doogie agrees to have a handful of friends over. But then some seniors invite themselves over, and they bring beer.

Second, Doogie has gone from sharing his first kiss with his girlfriend in episode 1 to now considering losing his virginity with her in episode 4. That’s quite a leap, and I was disappointed by the direction this was taking. Fortunately, he gets interrupted by a phone call from the hospital. There’s an emergency, and they need his help since he’s on call.

And this leads to the third reason I couldn’t finish this episode: Doogie drinks and drives. He had imbibed a beer that evening, even though he knew he was on call. His irresponsibility doesn’t end there. He exceeds the speed limit, gets pulled over by a police officer for reckless driving, can’t find his driver license or medical license, and gets arrested for drunk driving. He tries to claim he’s under the legal blood-alcohol limit, but he’s a minor, so anything over zero is a violation of the law.

Everything I liked about Doogie was suddenly thrown out the window. I could understand his disregard of traffic safety in the opening of episode 1 because he was in his right mind. I could even justify his recklessness in the face of medical protocols in episode 3 because it was an emergency, and he was in total control of himself. But watching him put others in danger by driving to the hospital while inebriated to perform a surgery was beyond the pale.

If he had gotten to the hospital and attempted to operate while impaired, he could have killed his patient. Everything about this situation struck me as the opposite of what I thought Doogie’s character was all about. And when he tried to justify his actions to his parents, I knew I was done. I couldn’t stand to watch him excuse himself. Perhaps the episode would find a way to redeem him in the last five minutes, but I had no interest in finding out. I was done with this TV series.

The Wrong TV Show for Me

My disappointment with Doogie Howser, M.D. is that it has just enough good qualities to keep me hooked and make me want to keep watching. But it comes at a terrible price. It’s trying to get me to accept certain premises that I just can’t. As I’ve gotten older, I find that sex just isn’t funny. It should be taken seriously.

Sadly, this is the wrong TV show for me. It treats underage drinking and sex as comedic opportunities to be mined. I guess I feel a lot like Doogie’s parents. They expected more of their genius son, and so did I. A brilliant premise for a TV show fell apart for me after just four episodes. I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt up to that point. However, once I realized where the show was going, I had to politely ask to be dropped off on the side of the road. I feel much safer on foot when I know who’s behind the wheel of this vehicle.

This is the Deja Reviewer bidding you farewell until we meet again.

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